Leadership development for mutil-disciplinary teams working across organisational boundaries to provide high-quality care for diabetes patients
The development of leaders in healthcare is widely recognised as being integral to improving the quality of care for patients. This is why we are investing millions of pounds in the healthcare leaders of tomorrow, through our array of leadership schemes.
However, traditional leadership development focuses on an individual’s needs. While this is undoubtedly important, it only goes part of the way to overcoming some of the inherent cultural challenges in healthcare which can often impede sustainable service improvements.
It is becoming increasingly accepted that all team members need to be involved if lasting improvements to team-working are to be achieved. This is particularly relevant when patient care involves staff from different organisations as individual leaders can only make a partial contribution to the fundamental changes needed to improve the complex systems involved.
Shared leadership is based on the principle that teams work together more effectively if all team members assert their individual leadership qualities. This is not to suggest that there should not be somebody with ultimate control, but ensures the team continues to function effectively if the leader is absent or leaves the organisation.
Other industries have embraced this approach, so we have translated it to the healthcare setting with the aim of creating lasting improvements in the care of diabetes patients.
What are we doing?
We selected six teams working to improve care for diabetes patients. Teams involved with long-term conditions provided the ideal focus for this scheme as the patient pathway often involves many different organisations and professional teams are multi-disciplinary.
The teams are based at:
- Carmarthenshire NHS Trust
- NHS Lothian
- Newham University Hospitals NHS Trust
- North Bradford Primary Care Trust
- Southport and Formby Primary Care Trust
- Windsor, Ascot and Maidenhead Primary Care Trust
We chose to concentrate on teams working to improve care for diabetes patients because:
- diabetes is becoming much more prevalent in the UK
- around 1.8m people are known to have diabetes with a further 1m estimated to be unaware that they have the condition
- existing cross-organisational team networks in diabetes care are relatively well established.
This means that improvements in team-working can be easily replicated throughout the UK.
Benefits to participants
The participants have been recognised as among the leading providers of diabetes care in the UK and we are encouraging them to act as exemplars for other sites. The specific benefits of participation include:
- tailored leadership development to meet their specific needs
- assistance in goal-setting and strategy development to improve delivery of diabetes care
- collaborative workshops to share experiences and best practice between participants
- ongoing contact with the National Diabetes Support Team and Diabetes UK to ensure best practice is disseminated widely
- a conference at the end of the scheme to present achievements to policy makers.
The development, both to teams as a whole and the individual team members, will:
- encourage greater confidence in the value of team-working
- improve flexibility within the teams
- help overcome organisational or cultural barriers in the systems.
At the end of the award, we expect the selected teams to be in a position to create sustainable improvements in the quality of care for people with diabetes and have the capability to influence national policy in this area.
What are we learning?
Making the culture shift to shared leadership cannot happen over night. However, our teams have been working very hard to make small, but significant, changes.
The team at Lothian has identified a number of areas which are helping improve the service they offer to patients, as a result of participation in the scheme.
- Work with the leadership development consultant has allowed them to examine their decision-making processes and challenge each other more constructively.
- The team has involved people with diabetes in service change and has set specific goals for quality improvement.
- The team is building positive relationships with the Lothian Health Board and community health partnerships so they can work towards influencing change more widely.
Team members also believe that participation has helped them pool their individual strengths together. These tangible benefits for patients confirm that leadership development is for all members of the team, not just senior management.